


Denial, Guilt, and Fear

by Johniarty



Series: Nothing Makes It Better [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Hospitalization, post-torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:44:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johniarty/pseuds/Johniarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following on the heels of I.O.U., Sherlock discovers John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denial, Guilt, and Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, it's been asked about, and so here's the immediate sequel to I.O.U.
> 
> I wrote for John, my dear friend Sky wrote for Sherlock, and if the ending seems weak it's because she left the group and deleted her RP blog, so I didn't get it all save and had to salvage what I did. 
> 
> After this, there's a revenge story, with John and Jim, which I may or may not post, depending on if I get the other pieces I have with ChloeWinchester finished.

John awoke to the sound of the door slamming and quick steps across the living room. He struggled to right himself, crying out at the strain on his body. The footsteps stopped, turned toward the closed bedroom door.

John’s heart raced weakly in his chest as the knob turned. All he wanted, all he needed, on the other side of that wooden portal. Sherlock, coming to find him, coming to pull him back from the brink of terror.

The detective walked into the room, eyes wide as they fell upon him. John smiled through the pain, a small light of hope creeping into his eyes.

More beautiful than a dream, a breath of fresh air, a warm summer breeze after the hell he’d endured.

_Sherlock._

_\------_

_Click._

221B’s door shut behind him. 

The chimes had rang in his head, first the heart palpitations. That John could be lying dead on the floor upstairs. He blinked, taking small steps up the stairs. No marks, no blood, no anything since he had left. 

He reached the door to the living room. Handle untouched, completely left blank. Was he here? 

Time froze around him and he couldn’t break through it. He bolted through the door, possibly snapping off the handle- it didn’t matter. Everything told him John  _was here._ He ran towards the door to their shared bedroom.

_John._

What would he find? Moriarty standing with a gun pointed to his head, JUST WAITING for Sherlock to get home, and shoot directly at him? What would John say in this situation?

_Please, God, let him live._

_  
_The handle was bloody, covered in John’s blood. _Gripped strongly, obviously not by John. These are Jim’s prints._ He avoided smearing them as best he could. Sherlock paused, stepping away from the door. What was he really going to see? Was he even ready? Hell. John could be dying and he was taking his time outside the door. He let his head fall against the frame. 

_I did this, I led him to you, please John—I can’t be sad when I see you, I just cannot. Love is for children. I’ll never say you it because I don’t love you, I don’t know what to say. You’re my thoughts, my breaths. Breathing is so ordinarily typical for them. Why me, why you? This is... Was that a groan? Be untouched John, be complete and asleep. Sound asleep, without a scratch. Let its just have been you going to see a woman or something equally ridiculous. PLEASE._

With that, he fell into the abyss of darkness, cracking the door open and shutting his eyes before he could see even a speck of the flooring.

\------

His eyes were closed, but John still smiled. He couldn’t help it. Even as his scabs stretched and ached, he smiled with such pure relief he though he might burst.

“Sherlock,” he croaked through a throat sore from choking and screaming. There were tears in his eyes.

\------

He opened his eyes. 

Sherlock Holmes, the ‘most human, human being’ only reflected a shadow in his lifeless, multicoloured eyes. The shadow was that was reflected was not John Watson. It was a beaten, cut, burned, sweaty and rotting corpse that lay on the mattress. It wasn’t John, it couldn’t have been. An empty voice in his mind assured that it was, and to his disgust he bolted towards the bathroom, vomiting up anything that was in his stomach. Bile and vomit filled the toilet as he heard a faint cry from the other room. Sherlock reached into his coat pocket. 

When his long fingers closed around his phone, the detective dialed for an ambulance, “Hello? 221B Baker Street, there is a body-” Dare he claim it as John? “It’s dying, bleeding from everywhere I can see. …Identification?” 

He swallowed hard, speaking with a cold, mellow tone voice though the pain that built in his throat. “I don’t know who that is on my mattress, but I know who caused the assault.”

\------

Moriarty was right.

 _Moriarty was right about_   **everything.**

John felt his smile fall as Sherlock rushed to the bathroom, retching. His heart shattered in his chest. It was over.

_Ugly worthless broken battered nothing nothing nothing Sherlock doesn’t want you now he will never want you again just die just die and stop bothering him he deserves better than some mutilated horror._

Tears fell from his eyes as he heard Sherlock calling the ambulance. He refused to acknowledge him, who he was, what he thought he’d meant to him.

He was wrong though. John was alive.

He only  _wished_ he were dead.

“Stop,” he croaked, “Sherlock, don’t, let me… don’t call for help. Just let me die. Please. I have nothing,  _nothing,_ just… stop… hang up…”

_All I had was you…_

_\------_

“You’re NOT! YOU’RE NOT DYING,” he yelled over the phone. 

_John?_

His pulse was calm, his breathing steady. He hung up the phone, not because John told him to, only because he knew they were on their way. A block, a wall closed him off from feeling anything except his senses. He walked out of the bathroom hanging his head low, moving to cover John with his jacket. Blood soaked into its fibers instantly. He covered John from the neck down; broken skin, love bites and blood marred almost every inch of him. The Belstaf did not cover his face. Sherlock looked to him, looked into his eyes, feeling his stomach drop to the ground. 

He flinched away, unable to concentrate, seeing it like a video in his head. The reptilian look on Moriarty’s face. Taking wire to his wrists, sewing his lips shut. Sherlock felt his chest rise, having it play over and over in his head. He could hear that cruel laughter, John’s screams…

He looked at John, not losing his empty-souled gaze, right through the hole in his shoulder, past the slashes of a whip that had cracked against his skin. 

Sherlock drained himself, only watching… Watching…

Jim’s breath blew against his ear. ‘ _I burned you Sherlock. I burned the heart out of you. LOOK AT THAT! Ha!’_

Straight faced, he continued to see the torture. John’s blood splattered like a third-dimension movie, Sherlock only sat and blinked in a trance. He was numb, he could not feel a thing. He couldn’t move or speak until the show was over. 48 hours of every moment of John’s torture was unshakeable. He didn’t care; the only thing that broke through was John living. He tilted his head, remembering how anxious, how sick he felt during those hours alone. Running down the sidewalk, finding John’s blood with no other trace, going to every ally everywhere in hopes they could find him. He hadn’t come anywhere close, now hope drained along with every emotion. He was a deducing machine, picking off information of everything that occurred to John. Blinded by a screen showing Moriarty’s grin of enjoyment from digging a knife into him, a followed cry. 

  _Caring is not an advantage, caring did not save him. Caring did nothing. Emotions will do NOTHING TO SAVE HIM!_

The light went out of John’s eyes. He was, he  _WAS_  dying- the fact he was even conscious was a miracle. Sherlock’s gaze was cold and logical, hardly seeing him. He was cataloguing his injuries. As his Belstaff touched him he hissed in pain, its scratchy wool irritating his lacerations. 

_\------_

_He doesn’t want to see you._

It hurt, physically and emotionally, but he was grateful for the warmth. He was grateful for the smell of Sherlock, for something so familiar to him.

And then Sherlock met his eyes.

There was nothing there.

No emotion. Just ice. John had to look away.

“Sherlock…”

What Sherlock was for intellect, John liked to think he was for emotions. He was decent at reading people and their varying states of feelings. There was nothing in Sherlock. Nothing at all.

He was terrified. Jim’s words echoed through his head. He may have been crying; he didn’t know.

Sirens sounded from outside the flat. He’d finished his call, then.  _Damn._

_\------_

He hid his face while thinking about him. It became overwhelmingly hard to breathe, the air felt too thick... He focused on John’s breathing, reaching a hand over towards his wrist to feel his pulse. A wrist that wasn’t cut. A small tear fell from his check. He didn’t know why, he couldn’t understand. 

People rushed up the steps, screaming at the sight of him _. Don’t you dare make that noise, He’s hurt and you’ll be next if you don’t be gentle,_ Sherlock thought. They pulled off the coat, asking him if it meant anything. Sherlock nodded and they quickly moved him to the vehicle. Two men stayed behind asking stupid questions that Sherlock ignored, pushing past to meet John inside the ambulance. He looked at him, eyes still watering. “He will live,” someone reassured him. The paramedic looked across to Sherlock. “Is he yours?” 

Sherlock didn’t have to think twice. “This is John Watson, and yes. He is mine.” 

John tried to protest as they took the coat, as they put him on the stretcher. Sherlock was crying. Silently, just one thread of water tracing its way down the curve of his cheekbone. He didn’t understand.

They threaded an IV into his arm, followed by another in the opposite- a saline drip, and a blood bag. A morphine injection followed as they slipped an oxygen mask over his face.

He began to slip under the influence of the opiate, but he still heard the detective’s words loud as day.

\------

“This is John Watson, and yes. He is mine.”

“Sherlock,” he said, fighting to he heard over the sirens. He reached for him with his damaged hand, trying to touch any part of him he could reach. His eyes were heavy, his pain fading beneath the morphine.

\------

Sherlock looked to the sleeping army Doctor. It pained him to see him so differently, asleep and covered in tubes. The man in the vehicle was oblivious, and just as nervous as any human would be. Sherlock kept his blank, stern expression, reaching out to hold John’s hand. He was under; he hoped he didn’t know the detective was crying. Moriarty was playing a game with his mind that he didn’t want to play. He didn’t know if that’s that the criminal wanted, for Sherlock to care enough about John so he could go after him again. 

But what worse damage could he cause, after all of this? 

Why John? To get to his head, knowing that Sherlock didn’t have a heart, because his heart _is_ John. He bit his lip, letting few tears fall down his cheeks. 

John almost died because of Moriarty, and the first thing he did was vomit and deny the man’s existence.

Sherlock was lost in a full cry, the medic across from him tending John looked blurry from the tears. In his mind, he could see John’s scabs, all over his face. Sherlock calmed himself, attempting to hide his tears, brushing them away with his unoccupied hand. He felt himself grow numb once again, deleting the moments of crying. _It won’t save him if I care._

The siren rang loud before the ambulance pulled up into the front of the hospital. Nurses rushed from the doors and pulled John out, on the stretcher, running and wheeling him through the automatic doors. They pulled him through the hallways that ran through the emergency center. Sherlock followed, refusing to let go of John’s hand.

“Sir, you have to leave him, we need to-“

“I’m. Not. Leaving. Him.  _Do you understand_?!” 

The girl sighed, ushering him to meet with the staff of doctors.

“Now! Here!”

Nurses hovered around the bed, lifting John onto it, “Come on, come on, come on… Okay sir, let go of him please- SIR WE NEED TO START!”

Sherlock didn’t speak. He let go and walked behind the curtain. A nurse followed behind him, an urgent expression on her face. “Sir, do you know what happened? We need all of his information, now.” 

“Um...” Sherlock looked over her shoulder to John. “Electrocutions, burns...” This was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “Cuts, JUST LOOK AT HIM! LOOK AT HIM AND YOU CAN FIND OUT!” 

“Sir…”

“No, his name is John Watson. Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers… _fuck_.” His hands were set under his chin, rocking back and forth impatiently. “He is an Army Doctor, obviously taken, beaten and sure, you can bother with the police, but they won’t find the man who did this.” Anger rose through his veins. He’d be damned if Moriarty would get away with this.

“But sir, if they can not, then who can?”

“Me.”

\------

In the blackness of the morphine, John did not dream. There were no nightmares. It was peaceful.

His medical mind was active, though, documenting everything that would be happening.

_Skin grafts to the shoulder and hand. Gel-based stitching, body too damaged to be able to handle traditional sets. Neosporin on the lips and the lacerations. Soothing cream on the burns from the knife. Washing the blood from the body with alcohol wipes. Sterilizing the wounds._

He thought of Sherlock before his mind finally quieted. He wondered if he’d reached him in the ambulance.

John came to in the ICU, bright lights overhead. He turned his head, searching, fighting through the haze in his vision.

“Sh…Sherlock…”

He hoped the man was nearby. He needed him to be. He needed to know he wasn’t alone.

\------

Sherlock was lost in thought to John’s treatments. He didn’t pay close attention, for if he did he couldn’t stay due to conflicts with the doctors and staff. They took him behind a curtain after having a row (where he asked, quite loudly, if he could trust a doctor who’d had three affairs with the nurses in the room).

No matter what situation, especially the most stressful one of all his life, he had the craving of John to calm him down. All he could do was sit and impatiently wait, fiddling with his hands tapping against the cold seat. Eventually he fell into the darkness of sleep.

He did find it easy to sleep, until images broke into his mind- of the torture. It wasn’t just about John being hurt, it was his weak and disgusted voice calling out to him.

_"Sherlock, I’m dying-"_

_"No shut up you’re living!"_

_"You wouldn’t care if I was."_

_"The hell I wouldn’t care! I’m here, at your side!"_

_"And? Why did you bother taking me?"_ John sounded strong, but the blood still dripped out of his nose and eyes. He was naked, strapped by wires to a chair, cut, and thousands of shades of red pelted his body. His skin was hardly managing to not become rags. When Sherlock walked closer in the dark room around John, he could see salt was rubbed into individual cuts. John hissed for Sherlock to move away.

_“To the hospital? Obvious, I need you John.”_

John chuckled grossly. _“You need me? That’s why you had me almost killed Sherlock?”_

This didn’t sound like John at all -Sherlock concluded this was a dream. He went on anyway, it actually made it easier.

_"I love you, I wanted you-"_

_"Safe?"_ John finished his sentence, _"SAFE? Look at me! YOU IDIOT. YOU FAKE. I WAS TAKEN AND TORTURED BECAUSE OF LOVE?! You think I love you,"_ he cleared his aching throat, _"do I sound like I trust you? I never have, I was treated like a pet. After this, you think I want to see you at all? You caused this... you cause everything."_

Sherlock was shaking and hot. He felt his body temperature rise to feverish levels. He leaned a hand against the wall to catch his weak self from falling to the ground. John’s monologue had meaning behind it and Sherlock believed his words to be true. Tears fell one after another, crying into his palms. He looked to the smile that curved up John’s broken lips that only grew larger. The pain should have been firing like bullets throughout his face. Another sign of a dream, he pointed out to himself.

The dismembered body shuddered as it spoke again in his throaty voice. _“Give up. Leave me, because I hate you. When you even slightly care, I know it’s an act-”_

"SHUT UP!" Externally he could feel his throat vibrate, it was likely he was sleep talking (or even sleep-screaming). "I WANT YOU ALIVE, I WANT YOU IN MY ARMS WHERE YOU BELONG AND NEVER FUCKING TOUCHED AGAIN. I WANTED YOU SAFE, I CAME HERE TO KEEP YOU SAFE..."

He could here someone calling his name. The broken and twisted John began using his name to mock him in an unusually high and soft voice, almost Moriarty’s exact tone.

 _"Sher-lock. Sherrlockk!”_ Sherlock rose, his baritone voice even deeper. _"You can hear me right now there isn’t a thing I didn’t do..no. I am wrong, I love and I know I love you. I love having you distract me during work; I love your stupid observations when I ask for what you think. I love your concerning soldier voice, how you wear the worst of jumpers and how your skin feels when we sleep unclothed together. I love your scars-"_ he was sure he spoke out loud, he felt half asleep but scars struck his mind. He looked up from his face in his hands as he sobbed. Jim grinned and slit John’s throat open with one clear cut. John struggled to breathe and choked on the blood that sprinkled out of his neck. Sherlock attempted to get up. His limbs didn’t move. Instead, he screamed.

"JOHN, NO! FUCK I CAN’T-JOHN, PLEASE GET OUT. LET ME MOVE, LET ME SAVE HIM-" He felt a shake on his shoulder, weak, but it was there and enough to wake him from his nightmare.

\------

The moment he heard Sherlock screaming, he was up. 

"Sherlock! Sherlock!"

His IVs bound him to the bed, trapping him.  _No, no, I have to- I have to get to him!_  He pulled the tape from his veins, the needles coming with. He tore the heart monitors off, the oxygen monitor, his oxygen mask. 

"Sherlock!" 

“ _I love you and I know I love you-“_

John stumbled toward the sound of the detective’s deep baritone voice, shouting as the machines went mad. He found him lying on the room’s cheap couch, tossing and turning in the throes of his dream. 

“ _I love your scars- JOHN NO! FUCK, I CAN’T- JOHN, PLEASE, GET OUT, LET ME MOVE, LET ME SAVE HIM-“_

John put a hand on his shoulder, leaning close, calling his name. He shook him gently, aching all over, his wounds burning. Sherlock’s eyes snapped open, focusing on him, breathing heavily as the dream receded.

"Sherlock…" He pulled him close, wrapping his arms around him, tears in his eyes. "I’m here, it’s okay, I’m here, I love you, please, I’m safe, we’re both safe…"

_The first time. One._

\------

As he shook from the dream and woke into the weak and injured (more importantly alive) Captain’s arms, he broke and shattered his wall, tearing it down so he could feel John emotionally and physically.

"John... I am so sorry, Jim won’t get away I swear to you John. You..."

He sobbed against his shoulder, attempting to get an actual look of his state. Broken, but beyond interesting to his overly-observant eyes. He studied him cautiously and noticed he was off his life support. He smiled to him through his red and tear filled eyes.

"You look like a crime scene."

\------

John held him, caressing his dark curls, doing his best to offer the man comfort. He scolded himself for his thoughts at the flat- It was shock, just shock. He thought of the bright orange blanket and fought to suppress a smile. 

Sherlock’s promise made him feel less empty, less hollow, less… less broken.  _He cares, John, he does, you heard him. He loves you, even if he can’t say it while he’s awake. Moriarty was wrong, so wrong. Remember that._

"You love crime scenes," he whispered back, smiling his very John-ish half-smile.

Smiling together, in each other’s arms… it felt like coming home.

John could hear the sound of doctors rushing toward his room; he wanted them to all sod off. This was his moment, his moment with Sherlock, one he’d wanted since he woke up in Moriarty’s dingy warehouse.

“Mr. Watson, please, get back in bed. You need your IVs- you’ve suffered immense physical trauma, we need you to rest and let us do our job.”

“I can’t leave him, please, don’t- Sherlock, I love you, I’m here, but they’re-“

The doctors took him gently and lifted him to his feet. He caught Sherlock’s hand, holding until they dragged him back to his bed. It was only fifteen feet away, but that felt like far too much to John. As they reattached his various tubes and machines, he watched Sherlock, life lighting up his eyes. It was enough. Sherlock was enough for him.

“Stay close,” he mouthed as they slipped the mask back on. He kept his hand out, out for Sherlock, as they administered antibiotics.

 _To ward off sepsis,_ he thought.

"Please, bring- bring a chair in," he said over the noise. One of the nurses nodded at him, smiling softly. 

"We’ll bring one for him, sir."

John released a sigh of relief. “Good, good…”

\------

The nurses pulled a chair up and he followed. John was fragile as glass; he wished he didn’t dream at all around him. But he wasalso glad he did, John woke him in more ways than sleep. He could look down at his I.V., still could tell the angle it set at, the brand used even. He saw and knew John loved him, he accepted and knew he loved him. Their reunion, all of that was too much. Rushed sex they both had pent up inside him, he definitely learned that it was what he wanted from John. He also wanted to hold him, only him, look into those weak eyes and tell him he’s going to be fine when Sherlock was home. 

He was crying through the entire process, had he even paid attention to anything but John’s hand tightly clasped around his? John must’ve heard him. Not the mixed screaming and fumbled words, the ‘I love you’. 

It was sad that he did- Sherlock liked the idea of keeping that emotion from being presented for people like Moriarty. No, correction, there aren’t any people like Moriarty. It was only him, burning and salting his heart. John.

Sherlock listened for hours. Doctors moved around him, working nervously to keep the deeper wounds from bleeding through. Sherlock had his head hung, slouching and occasionally pressing his lips to John’s fingers. The healing here will not heal the emotional scarring, or the physical. They’d have to get actual help for this.

 Sherlock pressed another kiss to John’s warm palm. 

\------

When they finally left them alone, John was glad. He used his free hand to pull off his mask and sit up, staring at Sherlock. His lips pressed against his palm, and John felt tears building in the corner of his eyes.

"Sherlock."

_I missed you. I need you. I love you. I’m sorry. You are everything. I tried. There is only you. You are my strength._

There were so many things that needed to be said, now that they had their privacy, and John didn’t know where to begin. He wanted to tell him how brave he’d been, but he hadn’t. He wanted to tell him how much Sherlock helped him get by, but that seemed like something Sherlock would find meretricious. He couldn’t tell him what Moriarty said, he couldn’t tell him about the unwanted touches, the forced kisses, the threats.

"I’m so glad you’re here."

That seemed as good a place to start as any.

"You… You’re beautiful."

That seemed lame, but it was true. Even under the harsh halogens, Sherlock looked like an angel.  _My angel._

"Thank you. For… for getting me here. For not listening to my…" he waved his hand. "For my  _that._ I… I was in shock. I thought…” He trailed off, looking into Sherlock’s eyes. There was something there, hiding behind the sterile gaze.

"It was like every nightmarish thing he whispered came true. I panicked. I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t want to… to. To die. Thank you for calling. Thank you for saving me."

He squeezed his hand. It was his anchor. His hope.

\-----

"John I don’t see a reason  _you_ have to apologize. I’m terribly sorry. I was a horrible friend, and an even worse love to you. I didn’t know that what you needed was us, was me... I had thought that, well the dream... you told me you wouldn’t want to see m, after this. I believed it.” He sighed, looking out at the empty hallway so he could avoid meeting his eyes. 

"I wanted you home, I hate it when you leave even just an hour. I do," he waved his arm, "care. That thing." 

He looked back. The wounds were clean and healing, at least. _John’s scars will be endless._

"I’m giving you a pager, one button calls Mycroft and they can find you instantly. I don’t want this happening again, it also lets me know you’re," he chewed on his lip, "stuck. Somewhere."

_Never again. Jim cutting into your chest, or even breathing the same air in the room. I’ll give my life before you ever put up yours._

_This was all my fault, John._

  
"So I suppose I was wrong, about one thing. I knew my whole life and had thirty years of data." He swallowed hard.

"Caring can save someone." Minutes passed and they were quiet. Sherlock spoke first.

"I hope you know that you’re the reason I’m so soft. I’m not a lonely man anymore, that I gave myself to a life of work, and then my blogger comes along and I grow a heart. Utterly foolish and…" He came close to his ear in a low whisper. "I love you, you moron."

\------

_Two_.

John watched him as he spoke, listening, agreeing to take the pager.  _Just in case,_  he thought.  _It will never come to that._  

"I love you too," he whispered back, smiling softly.

"I… I thought the same thing," John said quietly. "I thought you wouldn’t want me around. When you… When you… It was like… He said you’d be unable to look at me, unable to stomach me. That you’d leave. And I thought…  _I thought he was right,_ Sherlock.”

He licked his parched, swollen lips, remembering. “It was like all the good had gone out of the world, all the hope. In those moments, when you- I thought you were going to be unable to look at me the same.”

He lifted his free hand to caress his face, brushing his thumb across his prominent cheekbone.

"I’ve never been more happy to be wrong. I’d never have gotten through without you. You gave me hope when there was none to be found, Sherlock. You gave me the strength to make it home to you."

\------

"What a shame, this... all of this... John?"

He held him by his elbow, pulling to get his attention without causing the pain of even slight movements. He wished the tears would stop running down his face. If time could go faster, John would heal much quicker and everything would be alright. _Right?_

"I had to find you. I had to see you. And I believe you are the most important thing in my life. Why else would he go after you? It was because you’re the only thing that  _could_ break me. He wanted you and I set on the same state. John, if you’d ended dead...”

He paused, shutting his eyes, imagining living  _without John._ Was that possible? Before it was still with him, he just didn’t know he was there. He followed him after the fall, hiding and keeping quiet. And  _before_  he met John? Well, he didn’t want that to be in his streaming of thoughts. Not easy keeping all of his thoughts from revolving around John.

 It was far from easy. 

Nothing was easy about a _ny of this._

"I need you to tell me what Moriarty has said to you, I already have theories but I want you to tell me, please." 

\-----

Tears fell from John’s eyes as he smiled at Sherlock. He was perfect, perfect, everything was-

 _Tell me, please_.

His smile faltered. 

"I don’t want to hurt you," he said quietly. "It’s awful, truly awful, but if you… if you want to know. He started by telling me I was ugly. Disgusting. Couldn’t see what you saw in me. He told me you were brilliant enough to find me, but you weren’t. You weren’t looking. Told me I was just a pet, something easily replaced. He said when you saw me, I would make you sick.  _I did._ He said you wouldn’t want me around if I was weak and shattered, unable to even hold a gun, unable to run with you. You’d leave me behind, because I couldn’t keep up. He said there was nothing special about me, that I was expendable, that I… I was worthless.

He said he would break you. He said he’d give you more than what he gave me, because you are stronger than I am. He said he’d hang you by the arms and-“

His words caught in his throat, the world going red before his eyes. His voice dropped to a growl.

"He said he’d hurt you, cut you open, make you scream, make you bleed. He said he’d fuck you, slowly, over hours, fuck you until you were ruined, until you wanted no one but him. Because you are beautiful. You’re a treasure. And I’m filthy and unworthy and broken."

His lips twisted in a snarl.

"And I fought him. I fought him so hard for that. No one hurts you. No one gets near you. No one threatens your health. No one threatens you. I told him I would break him open again and again, just to watch him suffer. He laughed at me. Spat on me. Told me he wanted me to be just like him. Told me you’d look at me, and be reminded of him, and it’d disgust you. You would leave. I took so much, Sherlock, so much of his shit, and I fought, and I fought for you, but it… He overpowered me in the end…"

The fire went out of him. He moved closer, as close to the edge of the bed as he could. 

"He was wrong," he whispered. "You’re here with me now. You had the chance to leave, and you didn’t. I mean something. I mean more to anyone than he does. He didn’t win. He  _didn’t.”_

John kissed Sherlock’s hand, tears falling from his lashes.

"He didn’t take everything from me. I have you, Sherlock, and you  _are_ everything.”

\-----

Whether Sherlock felt hot under his collar listening to him, or the dying urge to tear Jim’s arms from their sockets, he couldn’t help but listen and remain quiet moments afterwards. Jim wasn’t a man. You couldn’t shoot him in the fucking head with a bullet that clearly would have killed  _anyone._  He was right since the beginning- Jim Moriarty wasn’t man at all. If he was immortal, Sherlock would still consider him a threat. A monster in every sense of the word. That John had gotten even more twisted, that Jim would hurt Sherlock, hadn’t had the same effect of seeing John so broken. 

Sherlock could be tortured, he could be raped and stabbed in the neck. He could do any of this because he wasn’t  _human_ in his mind. It was so easy to drown out all of the feeling. All of the emotion someone would want to spill out of his pores and have him crying on the floor, the only man that could do that was his heart.

His heart was a man, breathing. Living, more importantly, and lying in a hospital bed  _because of what the brain had done._

John Watson, the heart and bravery. 

Sherlock Holmes, the brain.

Simply he saw this as his only quality. He saw himself as the most clever, and of course was that true. John sat next to him the past few months and that Sherlock had thought for three small moments John might be torn apart. Those three moments were at the darkest points in his own mind during the day. Dark, empty, and thinking of ways he could keep John from running into this kind of situation.

"I failed you John. I didn’t keep you safe like I had wanted. I’m sorry. No. That’s not good enough." He tilted his head towards the side, softly kissing his broken lips, careful to not hit the stitch wounds. He wished he could stitch Jim’s shut. He wished he could make him feel everything, over and over. 

He couldn’t speak much after what John had told him. Most of it sank and flew from his mind, well, only the part of Jim actually hurting Sherlock. Jim wouldn’t cross the line, he was sure of it. The rest he took to him, locking it up in his mind, giving a stern and disgusted look at John speaking of the horrible lies Jim had told him. 

"You know me better than anyone, John." 

 Jim gave him his message. Clearly seen, clearly observed all throughout John. A mixed message, but the sign was so clear it seemed as if it were written thousands of times.

**Lonely.**

Poor Jim, how sad being such an immortal, lonely man. He smiled at the thought. It was true.

"What are you thinking about?" 

\------

"You never failed me, Sherlock," John whispered. "Not once." 

He immediately missed Sherlock’s lips as the man pulled back. Even a chaste kiss like that was enough to make him feel at home. Broken, battered, there was nowhere he’d rather be then with Sherlock Holmes. Even if it hurt.

"You’re right, Sherlock, I do know you. It’s hard to… hard to focus, hard to separate face from fiction when you’re… When you’re shivering in the dark… But you are here, and that’s is literally the only thing in the world that matters to me."

John meant it. The whole world could hang itself for all he cared. He had Sherlock. Sherlock was all there was, all there ever would be, all John would ever need. He caressed his hand, memorizing the feel of his skin.

"I’m thinking about you. I’m thinking about how much I love you, how much I need you. I can’t…" He sighed, the weight of the world contained in the sound. "If I meant nothing to you, he would have killed me. Out of pure spite. You did keep me safe, Sherlock. Without you, I’d be dead."

John was tired, so tired. “I think I need to sleep now, Sherlock.”

The detective nodded sadly. “It’ll be alright in the morning, John.”

 _No,_ John thought. _It won’t be._

 

 


End file.
